Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Katawa Shoujo 1.3 featuring the
Japanese localization is now available! Three years and change after
the original release, KS can be now read in the language of the image that originally inspired the birth of the Katawa Shoujo project. We'd like to thank and congratulate the translation team for their completion of the project, and hope you all enjoy the new language option for our stories.

As always, we greatly appreciate your
help in seeding the torrent releases. 1.3 is a standalone release
that completely replaces previous KS releases and it's the
recommended version for new readers.

Don't forget that we're participating
in Comitia 112 on the 5th of May. Please visit the
translation team at booth こ29a and say hello! Hardcopies of Katawa Shoujo in dvd cases featuring weee's artwork can be bought at the event.

- Aura

Here is a message from
the translation team:

We would like to thank everyone who
have been patiently waiting for the Japanese release for more than 3
years since the release of version 1.0. It was truly a long journey
with many challenges for us the translation team as well. We're
happy that we have succeeded in reaching the final goal. The Japanese
translation and the release of Katawa Shoujo could not have been made
without the tremendous support from dev folks in Four Leaf Studios,
the members of JP translation team, among many other people. We
would like to express our thanks for making this release possible.

Katawa Shoujo is a monumental game,
which was made in English language, by a team of non-Japanese
individuals, with a visual novel format which is very familiar to us
Japanese. Despite the title's first hand impression, the stories in
the game were very sincere, which received praise across the world.
It is undoubtedly a memorable piece, or rather a phenomenon in the
history of games (One evidence is that searching for "Katawa
Shoujo" in youtube will show 63800 videos posted).

I myself was moved so much when I
played this game, which was the reason I wanted to people in Japan to
know more about KS. That was also the cause for me to translate it
into Japanese.

As the Japanese Otaku culture spread
around the world over the years, its influence has culminated into
one masterpiece, and now it is being brought back into Japan. It's
fascinating how things have come to a full circle, and I feel lucky
that I could take a part in this. In a way, I felt it was a mission
for me to complete the translation and make it public. That
determination has kept me going till now.

Our team has given the best of our
efforts into the translation. Please enjoy.

----

7 years since the release of Act1 in
2008, and 3 years since the full version in 2012. English visual
novels were far more in the niche back then. However in the past
year or two, we are seeing more and more English visual novels in
Steam and other platforms. Perhaps Katawa Shoujo had its influence
in paving the way for Visual Novels.

I'm hoping that the release of KS
Japanese translation would increase interest in other novel games
outside Japan, and perhaps their translation as well.

4LS Twitters

About Katawa Shoujo

Katawa Shoujo is a bishoujo-style visual novel set in the fictional Yamaku High School for disabled children, located somewhere in modern Japan. Hisao Nakai, who has had a congenital heart disorder diagnosed just a few months ago, finds his life turned upside down when he moves to a new town and school after a long hospitalization. Despite his difficulties, Hisao is able to find friends and eventually have romantic relationships with one of five main female characters.